J.K.Rowling speaking at Harvard

 

 

 

 

 

利波特系列暢銷作家J.K. Rowling於2008年對哈佛大學畢業生的演講。文中以失敗和想像力為主題，表達她對人生的態度，以及對畢業生們的期望。

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is 'thank you.' Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honor, but the weeks of fear and nausea I've experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world's best-educated Harry Potter convention.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can't remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the 'gay wizard' joke, I've still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called 'real life', I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents' car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain , without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone's total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathies with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International's headquarters in London .

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country's regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people's minds, imagine themselves into other people's places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathies.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathies may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people's lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people's lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world's only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children's godparents, the people to whom I've been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I've used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives.

Thank you very much.

－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－

福斯特主席、哈佛董事會和監事會的各位成員、各位教職員工、各位畢業同學，以及你們的家長：

首先請允許我說一聲“謝謝你們！”，因為“哈佛”給予我的不僅僅是一種至高無上的榮譽，還有連日來因準備這個演講而感受到的恐懼和由陣陣恐懼惡心導致的減肥成功。這可真是一個雙贏的局面。此刻我不得不作深呼吸，半眯著眼睛看著眼前的大紅橫幅，以便靜心讓自己確認：我的確是在世界上最好的教育機構裡為“哈利波特”做演講。

發表畢業演說其實是在擔承一個巨大的責任，由此，也把我的思緒引到了自己當年的畢業典禮上，那天的演講者是英國著名的哲學家、男爵夫人瑪麗？沃洛克。借助於對她的演講的回憶，很有助於對我今天演講稿的完成，因為我竟然不記得她說過的任何一句話了。這個發現讓我釋然，讓我不再有任何恐懼：我的演講可能會因激奮起你們想成為“gay wizard”的愉悅，而誤導你們放棄在商業、法律、政治領域的大好前途。

是這樣嗎？如果在未來幾年內您們還記得住“gay wizard” 的笑話，說明我已經超越了瑪麗?沃洛克的可實現目標：啟迪你們邁出了個人改善的第一步。

事實上，我為今天應該給你們講什麼好，已經苦思冥想、絞盡腦汁。我曾問自己：我在從畢業到現在的 21 年間，我究竟學到和了解到些什麼重要的教訓？

我已想出了兩個答案。首先，在這個精妙的日子裡，當我們聚集在一起，慶賀你們取得學業成效的時刻，我已決定與你們談談有關失敗的收益；其次，當你們即將步入“現實生活”之時，我想特別談談想像力對人生發展的重要性。

它們或許如同歌德式幻想一樣不切實際，或者顯得荒謬，但是請容忍我講下去。

對於我這樣一個已經 42 歲的人來說，要回頭看自己 21 歲畢業時的情景，並不是一件令人愉快的事。可以說，我人生的前一部分，為取得一種平衡，我一直掙扎在我自己的雄心選擇和那些身邊的人對我的殷切期望的之間。

我一直深信，自己真正想做的事，就是寫小說。然而，我的父母，兩人都來自貧窮的家境，且沒有任何一人上過大學，他們堅持認為，我的超常的想像力僅僅是一種另類的個人怪癖，家裡是不可能為它借貸支付任何學習費用或交納年度學習費用的。

他們只希望我能盡早讀一個能謀職的學位；而我卻想去攻讀英國文學。最終，達成了一個沒有人感到滿意的妥協──我選擇學外語。可是等到父母一走開，我卻背著父母放棄了德語語言學的學習，逃進了古希臘文學的殿堂，事後看來，這是個十分明智的選擇。

我不記得是否告訴過我的父母，我一直在努力學習古希臘文學，也許他們很可能只在我畢業時才第一次發現這個問題。在他們看來，這個星球上的所有學科，再沒有比希臘神話學更糟糕的了。

這裡，也要說明一下：我從不會因我父母選擇的教子觀點，而去責怪他們。埋怨父母、怨天尤人只是一個人特定年齡階段的行為。誠然，你父母對你的發展指導有時會把你引向錯誤的方向，可當你長大到自己可以控制發展選項的時候，錯誤選項的責任就應當歸之於你。此外，我也不會因我父母希望我遠離貧窮而去批評他們。他們經歷了貧窮的生活，我也曾經一直跟著他們受窮，我非常讚同他們的意見：貧窮絕不是一種高貴的生活體驗。貧窮不時會給人帶來夾著屈辱和苦難的恐懼、壓力，甚至是絕望。如果能用你自己的努力擺脫貧窮，這的確是一件對令你感到驕傲的事情。只有傻瓜才會向人訴說貧窮本身是浪漫的。

我在你們這個年齡的時候，內心最害怕的不是貧窮，而是失敗。

那時，自己內心裡並沒有升騰起一種在大學自覺學習的動力，我把大量的時間用在咖啡吧寫文學故事上，僅有很少的時間用在課堂上。對付考試，我找到了一個通過的訣竅。憑借它，多年來，我一直也被認定為是同齡人中的成功者。

此刻，我不會作一個愚蠢的假設，因為你們年輕，有天賦和受過良好教育，在未來就不會遭遇任何困難或傷心。才華和智商，是不會輕易就能讓你們成為幸運的“凱來斯”（Fates，希臘神話傳說中的命運三女神）；我也不會假設，在座的每個人已在靜靜地品享著當下的人生。

然而，你們能從哈佛大學畢業本身這個事實，使得你們並不是很了解失敗。你們害怕遭遇失敗並渴望著成功。可事實上，你們構想的失敗可能和一般人的對成功的看法不會相距太遠，而這，正表明你們已經站在一個很高的地方起步了。

最終，我們所有人都必須自己決定什麼構成失敗，如果你有依賴，則這個世界就會把它的一套標準提供給你。依據這套常規的標準，客觀而論，在我畢業僅僅七年後，我就經歷了一次巨大的失敗。突然間，我結束了一段短暫的婚姻，失去了既有的工作。同時，我，還成為了一個單身媽媽。在這個現代化英國裡，我除了還沒到無家可歸境地，完全就是要多窮有多窮。我的父母對我境遇的擔心和我自己對自己的擔心，都一一展示在眼前。按照慣常的標準評判，我知道自己已是一個最大的失敗者。

此刻，在這裡我並不會告訴你們說：失敗是好玩的事。這期間我的生活完全猶如生活在黑暗的隧道中，決沒有那種如媒體描述的童話般的體驗。因為我並不知道這灰暗的日子有多長，還要走多少時間，那時候任何出現的一點光明對我而言都只是希望而不是現實。

那為什麼我要談失敗的好處呢？應該說我所經歷的失敗早已遠離我而去。我也不必要偽裝自己，我展露的就是真實的我，我已把我的所有精力放在了對我而言最為重要的工作上。如果不是別的領域讓我嘗試到成功，我可能就不會發現，失敗讓我真正找到了屬於自己獲取成功的舞台。盡管遭遇失敗，但我卻獲得了走過困境的自由，我不僅活著，我還養育了一個我深愛著的女兒，並用一台老舊的打字機完成著一個偉大的創意靈感故事。所以，即便是走到人生的最低谷時，它也可成為重建我生活的堅實基礎。

你們可能永遠不會遭遇到像我經歷的那種失敗，但有些失敗，在你們的生活中卻是不可避免的。人生不可能不遭遇一些失敗，即便你們格外謹慎地過著的生活暫時沒有失敗，但未來遭遇失敗的變數也是不可預設的。

對失敗的審視讓我看到了一種自信。是失敗讓我找到了前行的學習通路。失敗讓我看到了自己的堅韌，讓我得到了應有的鍛煉，也思考了許許多多的問題。還讓我發現：在我失敗時能積聚在我身邊的那些朋友，其價值是遠在紅寶石之上的。

人從挫折中得到知識，會使自己變得更加明智和堅強。也就是說，借助這些知識，你們會比以往任何時候都更有能力生存。沒有挫折，或許你們並不能真正認識自己，也體會不到能共患難的朋友的支撐力量的價值。對所有人而言，認知到這點，猶如獲得一個真正的禮物。失敗雖有痛苦，但理性的認知，它可以讓你“痛並快樂著”。而它們的獲取，要遠比我所取得的任何榮譽有著更高的價值。

如果時光能倒流或能穿越“時光隧道”，我會告訴 21 歲時的自己，個人的幸福謀取，就在於是否對生涯有一個清晰的發展規劃。你們的資歷，你們的簡歷，都不是你們終極應有的生活，雖然在生活中你們會遇到許多像我這樣年齡或者更老一點的人依然在混淆二者。真實的生活不僅是困難的、復雜的，也是任何人所控制不了的，如果眼下就能明白這一點，以後無論有何風雨降臨，你們都能很好地適應新的生存變遷。

接下來，你們或許更願意聽我談談我所確定的第二個演講主題：想像力的重要性。但你們別以為它就是類同於我睡前想像的那些一般化的夢幻東西。雖然睡前的故事有著催眠的價值，但我所說的想像力具有更寬泛的價值意義。想像力不僅是獨特的人類能力，借助對尚不存在事物的設想，構築著所有發明和創新的源泉；它同時也是變革與展示的能力，使我們能夠對那些從未接觸過的人類經驗有移情共鳴的體驗。

在我寫《哈利波特》之前的給我影響很深的大部生活經歷，在我隨後的作品裡都有所反映。在我 20 多歲時，為了付房租，我不得不在大赦國際倫敦總部的研究部門工作。而寫作，時常只能是利用吃午餐時間來悄悄做些。 ( 大赦國際組織是一個全球性的志願組織，致力於為釋放由於信仰而被監禁的人以及給他們的家庭發放救濟等方面的工作。 )

在那兒我的狹小的辦公室裡，我看到了許多人匆匆寫就的從極權主義政權裡偷運出來的潦草信件，他們冒著被監禁的危險，把他們那裡正在發生的許多真實的事情告知外面的世界。我看到照片中的人，許多已經消失無跡，是由他們絕望的家人和朋友發送到大赦國際來的。我看過許多酷刑受害者的証詞和受傷者的照片。我還看過許多手寫遺囑、目擊証人的報告、執行審判和處決的摘要記錄，以及施行綁架和強姦的敘述檔案。

我的許多同事此前都是所謂政治犯，由於他們所具有的對政府保持獨立的大膽的思考，而不得已被迫離開自己的家園流離失所，或者被放逐他鄉。來我們辦公室的訪客，許多就是那些來提供資料，或者查詢相關往事真相或拜見同事的人。

我將永遠不會忘記那個非洲來的被酷刑折磨的受害者，他是一名和我年齡相仿的年輕男子，他在故鄉，持久的折磨已把他摧殘成一個精神病患者。當他面對攝像機開始講述他被摧殘的殘暴經歷時，創傷的喚起竟讓他立馬驚悸顫抖起來。他本是一個高我 一英尺 的男人，但其行為反映卻好像一個脆弱的兒童似的。我的工作，是護送他到地鐵站，這名生活雖已被殘暴打亂的男子，在分開時，卻有禮的握著我的手，祝福我未來幸福。

而且只要提到從前，我就會記得，在那個空盪盪的走廊獨步，從關閉的門裡，時常會突然傳來一陣我從未聽過的尖叫的痛苦和恐懼。門打開時，裡面的研究員會探出她的頭告訴我，她正在為坐在她旁邊的青年男子調一杯熱飲料。剛才的吼叫，原來是他憤怒地對摧殘自己國家的政權進行聲討，他的母親在他的國家裡不僅被逮捕還被槍決。

還在我 20 多歲的時候，我工作的每一天，都在提醒我：能夠生活在一個政府民選、憲政至上、人權為大的民主國家裡，我是多麼多麼地的幸運啊！

為了幫助這些受難者獲得基本的人權享用，每天，我都要看到許許多多控告摧殘他們的惡人暴行証據。由於看到、聽到與讀到這類東西多了，夜裡，我還開始做起了噩夢來。

但也得指出，在大赦國際組織工作期間，我也了解到了許多比我以前想像更豐富的關於人類善善良的一面。

“大赦國際”動員起成千上萬的並沒有因自己的信仰而受到折磨或監禁人，主動站出來為那些遭受諸多不幸的人奔走。他們依托人類同理心的力量，引發更廣泛的集體行動，呼吁拯救生命和釋放政治囚犯。許多個人福祉和安全有保証的普通百姓，主動攜手合作，去大量拯救那些他們互不認識，甚至永遠也不會見面的人。在這一過程中，我以我微薄的積極參與，讓我感悟並積澱起許多極富振奮與啟發性的生活經歷。

不同於在這個星球上任何其他的動物，人類可以學習和理解自身沒有經歷過的東西。他們可以設身處地思他人所思，想他人所想。

當然，這是一種特異的能力，就如同我所虛構出的魔法世界的故事一樣，它在道德上保有中立態度。有人可能會利用這種能力去操縱或控制別人，但更多的人則可能利用它來了解別人或進行同理關愛。

許多人行事根本就不喜歡運用自己的想像力。他們更願憑借著既有的經驗在自己熟悉的安穩範圍內過生活，從來不去考慮自身之外的事。對別人的掙扎吶喊，他們可以聽而不聞；對別人的囚徒生活，他們可以視而不見；對別人的心靈苦難，他們可以拒而不憐。只要痛苦不觸及他們，他們就可以關上思維與心靈的大門。

他們這樣的選擇也許會給我一種誘惑，但細細想來像他們那樣生活的人，噩夢並不見得就一定會比我做得更少。這是因為，個人選擇在一種狹窄的空間裡過生活，當你在面對公共空間生活時，更有可能引發出某種形式的對陌生人和事物的精神恐懼，並給自己帶來恐怖感受。我認為想像力的缺失將會使我們看到更多怪異的事物。而由此會給自己的內心帶來更多的恐懼。

更甚的是，那些缺乏同理關愛與移情體察的人，更可能在自己的內心激活出真正的惡魔。因為，盡管我們沒有親手犯下那些昭然若揭的惡行，但我們卻以冷漠的方式和邪惡串謀在一起。

我所學到的，也是我 18 歲時在那冒險搜尋但不知道怎麼定義的重要事情之一就是，如古希臘作家普盧塔克所說的：“我們對內在修養的追求將會幫助我們去改變外在的現實。”

這是一個令人驚訝的說法，它已被我們生命中的每一天無數次地加以了証實。這句話部分地說明了我們與外部世界的生活有著非常緊密的關聯，事實上，只要我們的生命存在，就得感受他人的生命。

但哈佛大學的 2008 級的畢業生們，你們中到底有多少人願意去感受其他人的生命呢？你們的智力、你們辛勤工作的能力、你們已獲得與受到的教育，賦予了你們獨特的地位和獨特的責任。即便你們的國籍把你與其他國籍的人分開了，但你們中的絕大部份依然屬於這個整體的超級世界。你們表決的方式，你們生活的方式，你們抗議的方式，你們給你們政府施加的壓力，其具有的影響已遠遠地超出了你們的國界。這既是你們的權利，也是你們的責任。

如果你們能設法利用你們的社會地位和影響力，去代那些被剝奪了發言權的人發出他們的聲音；如果你們的選擇不僅認同有權的強勢群體，也認同無權的弱勢群體；如果你們能借著自身的能力去為那些遠不如你的生活的人設身處地地好好想一想，那麼，你們的存在，不僅能成為養育你們的家庭的驕傲，也能成為無數因你們的幫助而使自己日常生活有好的改變的人的驕傲。我們不需要借助魔法來改變這個世界，我們已擁有了改變這個世界所需要的內在力量：即能夠把世界想像成更好圖景的那種豐富的想像力量。

到此，我的演講也接近尾聲了。對你們，我有最後一點提醒，它是我從 21 歲畢業開始就一直在思考的。畢業時坐在我身邊的朋友後來成為了我終生的朋友。他們成為了我孩子的教養父母，也成為了在我遭遇困境時的最可求助的人；他們是我非常友善的朋友，不會為了我在死亡復活節那天用他們名字而控告我。在我們的畢業的時候，一種特別的愛把我們緊緊地連繫在了一起，我們沉浸在這段永不能重現的共同時光裡；當然，將來如果我們中的某個人成為國家首相，我們也沉浸於能擁有極其有價值的畢業留影相片的興奮中。

所以，今天我能給你們的祝福，是最希望你們能珍愛同學之間的友情。到了明天，在我退出我的職業生涯後，我希望即使你們不記得我說過的任何一個字，但能記住塞尼卡（Seneca，他是古羅馬斯多葛學派的政治家、哲學家和作家。），並記住這個古羅馬哲學家說過的最具古老智慧的那句話：

“生活就如同故事演繹一樣：要緊的不是在於它的長度，而是在於它的質量，這正是我們討論問題的關鍵。”

願快樂的生活永遠伴隨著你們。

謝謝大家。